Warrior PvP guide
=Introduction= In PvP, many classes will avoid melee combat which will make defensive equipment significantly less usable, as well as protection tree specificied talents. Of the three warrior talent trees Arms, Fury, and Protection, currently successful PvP warriors do mostly Arms/Fury with Mortal Strike, Axe Specialization, Two-Handed Specialization, Cruelty, Charge, Overpower, Tactical Mastery, and against many classes deal whopping amounts of damage with +% chance to crit trinkets and armor. Nowadays (it wasn't always so) the warrior is a very capable player killer. His/her strength lies in the offensive nature of the class, and the ability to charge into a fight and deal a lot of damage fast without having to rely on 20 different skills or spell. The warrior always does damage. That combined with the excellent defence that is the warriors trademark, makes for a somewhat unique but very effective pvp class, that however requires a bit of training to master. The problem is often to avoid being kited by more ranged oriented classes. For this combat controlling abilities such as hamstring and intercept are excellent remedies. =General PvP Tactics= In PvP, warriors primarily focus on: #Keeping enemies within melee attack range (and facing the enemy), and... #proper counters to enemies abilities, or proper usage of ability-attacks. Against ranged classes, (Mage, Hunter, Warlock, Priest, Druid) the major theme in the battle is whether the warrior can keep the target within, or at least close to, melee range. While in melee, the warrior should be dealing significantly more damage to the low armor foe. Additionally, any non-instant spells cast by the warrior's opponent are in danger of being interrupted. If the target is kept within melee range, the secondary requirement for a warrior win revolves around properly interrupting key spells. Against melee classes, (Rogue, Warrior, Shaman, Paladin), the warrior tactics are much more class-specific. The common tool against all melee enemies is Disarm. This ability will deny enemy abilities that require a melee weapon (there are many of these for these melee classes), as well as maximize damage differential in the warrior's favor. The timing of Disarming a rogue is critical to preventing of the rogue's finishing move, whereas against Shaman and Paladin, you just want to get in this move as often as you can. Other than Disarm, increased melee combat means more "swings" of the melee weapons by both warrior and foe, providing more opportunities to use the high-value/rage warrior counterattacks of Overpower and Revenge (Revenge is only worthwhile if stun-talent added, and can be caused by shield-block). These two counterattacks can be the difference if they are used within their relatively small time windows (management of weapons and stances required). How to Kill a Rogue Notable Rogue Abilities: *Vanish (Rend damage-over-time breaks stealth) *Stun Attacks: *High Damage Finishing Moves: *Weapon Poisons If you have it available Retaliation. Rogues do ton of strikes for low damage each, with Retaliation and a big two hander, you are doing the same attack rate, but BIG damage, toe-to-toe Retaliation is basically an "I win" button vs. a rogue. A stun-lock rogue, however is a different story. If, however, you want to beat rogues more than once every half hour, use a two handed weapon and overpower as much as possible. Rogues dodge quite a bit because they have bunches of Agility which simply makes them dodge. You can use sunder armor and other instant attacks to 'probe' for a dodge. The improved overpower talent is amazingly effective, especially with a slow two handed weapon. Disarm can also be useful against rogues, but overpower is bread and butter in a rogue fight. Furthermore, many rogues will attempt to backstab you, or use any other attack through Stealthing, if you get your timing right, you can use a Demoralizing Shout or any other Area of Effect spell to remove their Stealth, if successful, you will have a large step ahead from the Rogue, since it's a large part of their Stun Lock tactics. Using Defensive Stance to lower the damage from their Backstab will also give you an easy 10% less damage from their attack. How to Kill a Warrior Notable Warrior Abilities (Which you should know): Warrior abilities are a guessing game as to what their talent build is, in order to guess effectively you must base your assumptions on what gear they are wearing as well as what weapons they are using (or by the less reasonable way of engaging them and hoping they will reveal their higher talent tree abilities). In general, a warrior using a two hander will be Arms, dual wielding will be Fury, and a one hander and shield will be Protection. Arms/Fury Build Abilities: *Mortal Strike *Piercing Howl *Improved Hamstring Arms/Fury Warriors are specialized in dealing damage and dealing damage in quick bursts with a heavy two-handed weapon. It's like getting hit with a train, hitting rewind and getting hit with a train again. Warriors with an Arcanite Reaper should be expected to be this build as well as any warrior wielding an Ice Barbed Spear. Fury Build Abilities: Fury Warriors generally take advantage of the new Dual-Wield Specialization talent, and therefore have huge rage generation potential. Expect them to deal constant damage and try to sustain movement. The Fury tree has some slight problems with it, but the fury warrior will generally act as a rogue, trying to stay out of your attack range. A hamstring will put you at a better odd to kill them, watch out for fury tree "When the victim of a critical strike" talents, just deal damage. Protection Build Abilities: *Last Stand *Improved Revenge *Concussion Blow *Shield Slam Protection Warriors take damage, and that's about all they do, no spectacular damage potential, they have limited use of stuns, simply do more damage to them then they do to you and it will be an easy win. How to Kill a Priest Notable Priest Abilities: * Power Word: Shield * Mind Flay * Holy Fire * Devouring Plague * Shadowguard * Prayer of Healing * Shadow Word: Pain * Desperate Prayer * Flash Heal * Psychic Scream * Mind Blast * Mind Control Shadow priests are basically one trick wonders. Its all about fear. They DoT you, fear you, and watch you die running away. Fighting a priest Berserker Stance/Berserker Rage is a must. You take away their ability to fear you, close to hand-to-hand and you win. Priests do not have any way to run away from you, a quick hamstring will keep them in melee range permanently. You should be in berzerker stance as soon as you see the priest. If he is not in melee range, bloodrage and intercept, then hamstring as soon as you have the rage. After this, killing the priest is elementary. How to Kill a Warlock Against ranged classes with pets -- Hunters and Warlocks -- the warrior will be forced to deal with a pet while running down the opponent. If the pet has closed to within melee range of you, it will continue to do damage to you while you chase the main opponent. Remember, Melee attacks are on auto, and continue even while you are moving. You should never fight the pet for a prolonged period of time because the ranged attack of the opponent can cause much more damage per time, and if you kill the pet but not the owner, the owner will have beaten you. Just as with the mage, while you are chasing the enemy, make sure you are in defensive stance with your shield equipped. You are not doing damage to them -- might as well be taking the least amount of damage that you can be. Shield Block, if you have the rage to spend, blocks more damage against ranged non-magic attacks, and is very useful while you are waiting for intercept to cooldown, or which you are chasing. The hunter has many things that improve shot speed, in addition to their auto-ranged attack, and will surely get several attacks on you while you are running him down. However, the pet melee means that you will be facing attacks while you are running down the opponent. Most other ranged opponents will need to be standing still (thus you will be closing on them distance-wise) to do damage to you. Therefore, it is critical to affect the pet via hamstring, fear, stun, or something else so that you do not take too much damage while you are chasing the opponent. You probably can't kill a skilled warlock. That should not, however, stop you from trying. If the warlock is using an imp, it may be worth your while to kill it. Imps can do high amounts of damage, but they have very low HP. Beware of a skilled warlock with a Succubus out as well - chain seduce can be unpleasant, and effectively remove you from the fight.. Berzerker stance is key, but you should probably close in with a charge if possible. If not, do it the old fashioned way: run. He will DoT you and fear you, but your berzerker rage will break the fear. Hamstring as soon as possible after his first fear (If you want to PvP without tactical mastery, roll another class). The second fear should be ridden out. It will put you far enough away to intercept. By this time you'll probably be dead. If not, then melee to victory. How to Kill a Mage Notable Mage Abilities: * Blink - instant cast, 15 sec cooldown, teleports caster 20 yards in front of the caster. frees the caster from stuns or bonds (roots) * Ice Barrier - instant cast, 2 min cooldown, absorb next 568 damage to caster, lasts 1 minute. while the shield holds, spells will not be interrupted. * Frost Armor - instant cast, lasts 30 minutes, increases caster's armor by 200, enemy melee attacks have a chance to cause the attacker to have movement slowed by 30%, and attack slowed by 20% for 5 sec. * Frost Nova - instant cast, 25 sec cooldown, enemies near the caster take 71-79 frost damage, and are rooted for 8 seconds. * Polymorph - 1.5 sec cast, Transforms the enemy into a sheep, forcing it to wander around for up to 50 sec. While wandering, the sheep cannot attack or cast spells but will regenerate health very quickly. Any damage will transform the target back into its normal form. Only one target can be polymorphed at a time. Only works on Beasts, Humanoids and Critters. * Cone of Cold - instant cast, targets in a cone in front of the caster take 335 to 365 frost damage and are slowed to 50% of their normal movement speed for 8 sec. * Frost Bolt * Pyroblast * Presence of Mind Generally, a warrior will lose to a mage because mages have many tools to escape melee range. Once separated, mages can then rely on purely instant damage spells that never give the warrior a chance to effectively close the distance gap. A mage may also choose to use Ice Barrier, so that their spells that actually take casting time cannot be interrupted. Despite this, here are concepts that work: * Intercept is best used if done in reaction to blink, so that the mage cannot blink away immediately in response to intercept. Unfortunately, the mage will have to blink first - hopefully in response to a charge you've gotten off. * If this can't be done, at least try to intercept in order to interrupt a spell being casted. * If you are far from the caster and are going to take damage anyway, try to be in defensive stance. The 10% reduction in damage should apply to spell damage. * If a mage is casting a big damage spell and you don't have intercept, and are too far away be able to run to the must-be-standing-still-while-channelling mage, you may be able to run in the opposite direction, as spells will fail if the target exits a maximum distance (which may be larger than the original targetting distance -- and this doesn't apply in PvE). * Mages have mostly Arcane/Fire/Frost magic. All do damage, but Frost slows you down, Fire is the most one-time damage and has damage over time (like 800 damage fireball, with extra 250 damage over time) after a long channeling (5 and 6 second channel), while Arcane Missiles does about the same damage incrementally (200 damage every second over 5 seconds). Having big frost resistance will improve your chances to resist being slowed, which is I think more important. Particularly frustrating are Arcane/Fire or Fire/Arcane mages. These don't depend on range at all - expect to see then throw up a mana shield to neutralize your damage and then just Fireblast/instant Arcane Explosion/Cone of Cold/etc. They don't even need to try to get out of range - they're lowering your health faster than you're lowering theirs. You can't interrupt them except by Concussion Blow/War Stomp because they aren't casting any spells. In duels, these mages will often run at you before the duel has even started - if they start at melee range, you don't get to charge. This may not work at higher levels, I haven't tested it. The only tactic I've found that works against certain classes (Mage, Hunter, for example) is as follows: get near something that will mess up their line of sight and hit bloodrage. As soon as bloodrage has given you enough rage, hit Intercept. You'll rush over, deal some damage, and stun them for three seconds. If all goes according to plan, you should have enough rage to hit concussion blow right as they come out of the Intercept stun. Hamstring and Rend them and then build up some extra rage while they're stunned. They'll probably either Blink or stun you right away and get some separation, but by the time they've gotten far enough away to pose a threat Intercept should have recycled, and they will be in extremely poor shape. Certain Death: Polymorph - Arcane Power - Fireball - Presence of Mind(POM) - Pyroblast - Fire Blast - Blast Wave - Cone of Cold How to Kill a Druid As with all casters, shield bash is crucial to fighting a druid. If you are outside, the spell to look out for is Entagnling Roots, which will root you in place. In melee combat, A warrior should always beat a druid. Things to watch out for, druids (in bear form) have an ability to stun you for a few seconds. Expect them to use this as they are getting low in hitpoints. They stun you, change back to caster, heal, then back to bear. To counter this, make sure you are in berzerker stance (ideally have your rank 2 PvP trinket for breaking stun ready and equipped). When they stun you, hit your trinket. When their hands turn green as they begin to case heal ... pummel them to stop the heal. Blood rage if necessary to get the rage for this, as that heal will likely mean death for you. Also if you are MS spec, keep that on them, that 50% healing reduction goes a LONG way in winning the battle as druids have several Heal Over Time spells, that your MS will nicely gimp. Beware of one trick they sometimes use to get use to waste our pummel. They hit their heathstone for a couple of seconds (same green hands effect), we pummel them THEN they heal. Counter: do damage in any way, this will interrupt the heathstone, if they are STILL green handing it, pummel. How to Kill a Hunter The advice for fighting warlocks applies to hunters as well, as does the bloodrage/intercept strategy used against mages. Keep in mind that chasing a hunter who is stunning/dazing you is an entirely futile exercise until intercept goes away; switch to a shield, shield wall if necessary, and build up rage on the pet while doing what you can to mitigate damage until intercept recycles. Anothe option is to try to get close enough to where you can get off an intimidating shout. If you get the jump on them it's even easier, if not you can still get this to work. Make sure you are targeting them and not their pet, this will get their pet out of your hair for more than enough time to punish them. Most of the time they freak out that their pet is gone so all you got to do is hamstring, disarm whatever you have to do, MS, execute. It's that easy. If they get the drop on you do like he said above, build up rage intercept. That's one of your strongest weapons against the hunter. It's all about tactical mastery gents, if you don't believe me keep on trying to win battles with 1/3 of your char. It is a must. With the coming patch (21st Dec '04) it should be even easier to intercept. Bloodrage will now be less of a health hit, and you'll get enough rage to intercept instantly plus 10 more over time. How to Kill a Paladin When fighting a Paladin, you need to keep them in front of you to deal maximum damage and try to stay behind them to take the least amount of damage as possible, keep them hamstringed and rended. and if your an MS warrior, Mortal Strike won't do anything for you unless he heals before putting on Blessing of Protection or Divine Shield, if he put up any of his "Protection" shields back about 10 yard away from him/her as quickly as possible. Bandage this way you should be out of range for his Hammer of Justive and his Concecration(which will infact stop your bandage). and then when he comes out of his shield, you should be far enough away from him to do Charge... it's all about your rage. Notes: Keep Rend on him. Keep Hamstring on him. Keep him in front of you. Stay behind him. Try to get him disarmed as much as you can(no weapon=OUCH!). if your losing... there is really nothing you can do, just fight it out to your death and try to kill him. watch out for thier Holy Execute from 25 yards, if he tries to do it... either pummle him or stand behind himor Concussion blow if you have it... DON'T LET HIM USE THAT SKILL, it IS your death. How to Kill a Shaman A basic strategy is charge/intercept, hamstring, stay in melee range and kill the Shaman fast. Shaman have a number of abilities that are difficult to deal with. Watch out for Fire Totems, you should kill them before they do a moderate amount of damage. A Shaman's frost shock is an effective instant cast spell that slows your movement and does minimal to moderate damage. Shock timers are very short (~6 seconds). Shaman also have effective combat heals. While not a shaman ability, the Tauren racial ability, Warstomp, is worth mentioning. The vast majority of Shamans are Tauren, so you will likely see this ability used often. It is very effective in close quarters. Level 1-50, Shaman will probably beat a warrior. Level 51-59, Shaman start to balance with other classes, and the better player (or more lucky) will win. At Level 60, A well geared warrior should never loose to a shaman. Defensive Spec'd warriors - a risky, but potent strategy, whenever possible/practical, is to agro additional mobs. In defense stance with decent gear, mobs do very little damage, but generate extra rage. The downside is that you can't bandage to heal after a concussion blow. Category:Tactics Category:Warriors